Credit – Javier Galeano/Reuters
Elite opinion on Obama’s attempt to bury the Cold War hatchet with Cuba is shaping up just as you might expect it would.
The New York Times editorial board gushed over the decision, calling it “a bold move that ends one of the most misguided chapters in American foreign policy.”
The Times applauded Obama for doing everything within his power to normalize relations with Cuba within the constraints of a 1996 law imposing sanctions on the Cuban regime. Odd that The Times’ argument against the Cuban sanctions is that they are so “outmoded,” and yet they must concede that they were ratified by the American Congress as recently as the eve of President Bill Clinton’s second term…
With these powerful political actors heading into their familiar corners, The Washington Post editorial board’s vote of no confidence in Obama’s move came as a shock…
The Post’s editorial is not merely a registration of their disapproval in Obama’s decision, but an indictment. The paper suggests that any progress toward Democracy in Cuba has been arrested by the president’s shortsighted move.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Obama Gives the Castro Regime in Cuba an Undeserved Bailout
By Washington Post Editorial Board
IN RECENT months, the outlook for the Castro regime in Cuba was growing steadily darker. The modest reforms it adopted in recent years to improve abysmal economic conditions had stalled, due to the regime’s refusal to allow Cubans greater freedoms. Worse, the accelerating economic collapse of Venezuela meant that the huge subsidies that have kept the Castros afloat for the past decade were in peril. A growing number of Cubans were demanding basic human rights, such as freedom of speech and assembly.
On Wednesday, the Castros suddenly obtained a comprehensive bailout — from the Obama administration. President Obama granted the regime everything on its wish list that was within his power to grant; a full lifting of the trade embargo requires congressional action. Full diplomatic relations will be established, Cuba’s place on the list of terrorism sponsors reviewed and restrictions lifted on U.S. investment and most travel to Cuba. That liberalization will provide Havana with a fresh source of desperately needed hard currency and eliminate U.S. leverage for political reforms.
As part of the bargain, Havana released Alan Gross, a U.S. Agency for International Development contractor who was unjustly imprisoned five years ago for trying to help Cuban Jews. Also freed was an unidentified U.S. intelligence agent in Cuba — as were three Cuban spies who had been convicted of operations in Florida that led to Cuba’s 1996 shootdown of a plane carrying anti-Castro activists. While Mr. Obama sought to portray Mr. Gross’s release as unrelated to the spy swap, there can be no question that Cuba’s hard-line intelligence apparatus obtained exactly what it sought when it made Mr. Gross a de facto hostage.
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